


Reunion

by rallamajoop



Category: Venom (Comics), Venom - All Media Types
Genre: Missing Scene, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27655874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rallamajoop/pseuds/rallamajoop
Summary: So he’s lost his breakfast – and good riddance. If he could only purge every other relic of these past, lonely years from his system as easily. He can feel his symbiote, his Other, surging through him like a second pulse, a fire in his veins, a tingle that runs across his every nerve. His body feels like a jumble of pieces rolling around a human kaleidoscope, realigning into strange and beautiful new patterns with each movement. It’s a wonder he can stand. He only hopes one of them remembers which way is down.– A missing scene, covering Eddie and his symbiote's reunion at the end of issue #6 of Costa's 2017Venomrun.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Kudos: 58





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen one or two other takes on this scene around the fandom, but couldn't find one that delivered the utter gut punch of an experience I wanted from it, given all these two have been through (not to mention all this run of comics has in store for them). Naturally, that meant I had to had to take a crack at writing my own.

This is how their reunion begins:

Eddie Brock wakes up, punch-drunk and disoriented, to the virulent sight and smell of his own last meal, retched up behind a dumpster in an unfamiliar alleyway. His mouth tastes of bile, his skin is clammy in that particularly personal way that comes with having lived in the same clothes for a week. Behind his eyes he feels a flurry of activity and second-hand contrition. 

_**Sorry, Eddie.** Shouldn't have made our host ill like that. Beginner's mistake. Too much excitement, too eager. Ashamed._

"It's alright, love," says Eddie, and means it. Just to _hear_ that voice again—he could weep, he could _sing_. "It's more than alright." 

So he's lost his breakfast—and good riddance. If he could only purge every other relic of these past, lonely years from his system as easily. He can feel his symbiote, his _Other_ , surging through him like a second pulse, a fire in his veins, a tingle that runs across his every nerve. His body feels like a jumble of pieces rolling around a human kaleidoscope, realigning into strange and beautiful new patterns with each movement. It's a wonder he can stand. He only hopes one of them remembers which way is down. 

It's never been like this before, when they were together, the various separations and reunions that punctuated their lives over the years. But maybe it would have been, if you crammed the experience of all that missed time into a handful of moments. It's only his body that's still catching up. 

Here and now, Eddie Brock wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve, leans a hand on the wall, and gives himself a moment to take stock. There's something wrong with his skin: that tight, clammy feeling—christ, he's still wearing _real clothes_ , that's the problem. He never does that, he never used to when... 

_**When we were together. Didn't need them. Got in the way.**_

Yeah. Crazy, the things that become normal, when your life upends like that—learning to wear clothes again, learning _not_ to—he's tempted to strip his damn FBI jumpsuit off right here and ditch it in the alleyway. But that's probably not a smart move, now he's back on the lam. Someone'll find it, they'll know it's his. On the other hand, maybe it'd be better to get rid of it now rather than later. Damn it, he's in no state to think strategically. Bent over in an alley is no place for it, either. 

He straightens, trying to clear his head, but it's hard to think through the fog. Shifting his weight only draws his attention back to a particular unpleasant dampness down the front of his pants, which he's starting to recognise as something more than too many layers of unnecessary fabric. _Ugh_. As if throwing up wasn't enough, he'd better not have gone and _pissed_ himself as well. 

A soft flurry of movement; the symbiote equivalent of clearing a throat. _**Um. Not exactly.**_

_Oh._ Oh, _shit_. Eddie could laugh. His first orgasm in god knows how long, and he can't even remember it. What the hell happened? He's pretty sure they didn't stop for a celebratory jerk-off on their way out of the building. 

But bodies do weird things under stress. Back in the army, a guy once told him a tall tale about fighter pilots—flattened under the combined assault of low oxygen, stress hormones and G-forces that could knock a lesser man cold—who'd find themselves coming in their pants out of nowhere in in the middle of a dogfight. He never found out if it was true, but re-bonding with his Other had to be at _least_ as intense an experience. Maybe it made a kind of sense. 

Hang on, he's _Eddie Brock_ : he's never _been_ inthe army. So whose memory was that? Lee Price? Flash Thompson? 

There's no answer from his Other, just a fresh wash of second-hand anxiety. Maybe he isn't sure either. 

"Hey, it's okay," Eddie manages, fighting past the sacrilege of _other people's_ memories intruding on their sacred bond. "With all you've been through, anyone would be a little confused." If only he had the power, he'd rip those chapters clean from the book. 

**All** _ **we've**_ **been through.**

"Yeah. _We_." He could bask in that all day. If his legs will hold him. 

**Eddie, not safe here. Need to move.**

His Other is right. Though it'd help if Eddie could even remember which way they came. When did he black out? 

The last thing he clearly remembers is choking a man into unconsciousness in the FBI's temporary holding facility. Already, it feels like a memory from a past life. But past that, fainter, like the seconds leading up to a concussion, there are... images, fragmented like cracked glass. 

Eddie sees himself moving through the doorway of the temporary containment facility. His first glimpse of the reinforced glass cylinder, the fluid, black shape within, barely moving—then suddenly alert, when it recognised the figure coming in. ( _How many times have they been here before?_ ) 

(No, he was _in_ the containment cylinder, watching _himself_ step into the room. A rush of excitement and joy, doused by a dark haze of suspicion. There were only two men in the world who could evoke such emotion, and the other had already rejected him— _again_ —earlier this very day.) 

"That's right, love," says Eddie, stepping up to the barrier, "I've come for you," and presses his hand against the glass... 

_Around him, the high-tech paraphernalia of the Life Foundation whirs to life. Eddie grins as he presses his hands against the clear perspex of a containment cell holding the other half of his soul. "Did you miss me?"_

_He's in the Innsmouth Sanatorium, promising his Other he'll have it out of that jar soon, god, he's missed him so much._

_He's in the Vault, and they're torturing him, their containment a wall of pure sound._

_He's in the church, kneeling at the altar, praying for a benediction he couldn't describe or name—little realising it won't be god who hears and answers him—but something much darker, something real, that will love him as no god ever did._

...No, that's all wrong. _This_ time, the facility belonged to the FBI. 

There isn't the time to give this moment the reverence it deserves, but even separated, his symbiote could sense his intent—just like it did on the day they met, when their mutual hate for the spider brought them together. Tentative at first, it reaches for his palm, spreading against the glass beneath his fingers as doubt becomes relief, becomes _faith_. Anticipation rising, he watches it grow frantic with the need to be reunited, seething against the barrier in furious waves. 

Eddie's vision blurs at the corners. "Just give me a minute, I'll have you out of there," he promises, but hardly has he begun to figure out how to release the containment when he hears the glass _crack_... 

Back in the present, it's all starting to make sense. "That was you," Eddie breathes, understanding. There are tears pooling at the corners of his eyes again; isn't that just fucking _glorious_. 

**Couldn't keep us apart, Eddie. Meant to be.**

He's swinging through the skyline of New York, ensconced in the dark second skin of his Other. They want to holler their name from the rooftops, to let the entire world know that _they're back_. This is what it feels like to come _home_. 

Eddie's stomach lurches, tangled with exhilaration. There's a real danger he's going to be sick again the moment his symbiote withdraws. He doesn't care. Already, the past few years apart feel like a fading dream. 

It'll all be different this time. They'll go to ground, stay out of sight—no-one can be allowed to separate them again. He already has a place—it's not much, but it's off the FBI's books, he knew he'd need it sooner or later. Then they can... 

No, he can't think that far ahead. Not when the present is so dizzyingly wonderful. 

This is their new beginning: no more Spider-man, no more Flash Thompson or Mac Gargan parading _his_ symbiote around in front of him like they had any fucking right. No more labs, poking and prodding and turning them into a science experiment. No more Toxin, no more Anti-Venom to get in the way, no more FBI telling him how high to jump and pumping him full of their drugs, like they could make symbiosis happen on _their_ terms. Just _them. Us._

Or, hell, maybe they will go looking for Spider-man, just once—just to rub his face in it. Maybe even threaten to eat his brains, for old time's sake. Ha. God, he could go for a good fight right now—stretch the old muscles, find some lowlife with it coming, tear him apart and pound what's left of him into _gristle_... 

_...What?_

No, _no_ , they aren't going to do that this time. Where did that come from? They're better than that, they have to be. 

Ah, what the hell—a minute ago he had Price's memories ( _was_ it Price?) intruding over his own—it could've come from anywhere. That'll pass. Get some rest, get his head in order, it'll all settle in. 

**Together, Eddie. Won't let any of them come between us again.**

_Yeah_. That's all that matters now. They've got their second chance—his beloved Other, throbbing through his veins, all of New York at their feet. 

It'll _all_ be different this time. Just wait and see. 


End file.
